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House Panel Resumes Debate Over Impeachment Rules. Aired 2- 2:30p ET

Aired December 17, 2019 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[14:00:13]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: You are watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you for being with me on this Tuesday, the day that is expected to go down as the history in terms of impeachment eve. Tomorrow, the House of Representatives and said to vote in favor of two Articles of Impeachment against President Trump: That would make just the third time in 243 years -- think about that for a second -- that the House has done that to an American President.

The vote itself is such a seminal and serious moment for this country that today the House Rules Committee is setting up guidelines on how the debate on the impeachment vote will proceed. Right now, the Committee is taking a short break. Before they left, this final impeachment hearing on procedure got is partisan as all the others we've seen these past couple of weeks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. TOM COLE, (R-OK): Is there any actual evidence that the pause on the Ukrainian assistance was for the President's improper personal political benefit or might he have had other reasons for withholding aid?

REP. DOUG COLLINS (R-GA): He had plenty of other reasons? And I think that is a part of it is the law itself, which says that, you know, even though, it was certified it was the President's call to make sure that there was no corruption in where aid is given. There were other countries during that time where aid was withheld.

I think from an appropriator standpoint, Mr. Cole, you'll also understand this aid was not even scheduled to go out. It had to be done by September 30th. It actually went out early, if you look at it from that time frame.

So there were other reasons. There was a recent poll - and just to show you -- and again, we talked about this a little bit from our side, the corruption in the Ukraine was so prevalent. A recent poll says 68 percent of normal, just everyday Ukrainians had said that they had bribed a public official in the past year.

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): If you go to the July 25th telephone call, President Trump never raised the word corruption once, but he did talk about Joe Biden three times, so we didn't hear corruption, corruption, corruption. We heard Biden, Biden, Bidden. That was the favor that we were looking for. Right? He wanted the President of Ukraine to come over and say he was investigating the Bidens. Look, that's an unrefuted and uncontradicted in the record.

I don't think we should -- I don't think we should be trying to pull the wool over America's eyes about this. Let's not play make believe. If we want to say it's okay, for the President to do this stuff, then let's just go ahead and say it, but let's not claim that he was involved in some kind of anti-corruption crusade at the time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Okay, so let's cut through all of what we've been listening to in the last couple of hours. Lauren Fox is our go to gal there on Capitol Hill. And I know that this Rules Committee hearing is supposed to set the parameters and set the rules ahead of tomorrow's big day, the big vote. So far, it has been just extraordinarily partisan.

A lot of what we've heard the last couple of weeks, what's been happening and when will they set those parameters?

LAUREN FOX, CNN POLITICS U.S. CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Brooke, it really speaks to what an important and weighty moment that this is in the House of Representatives, because this is something that gets debated every time a bill comes to the floor. But the fact that we are paying attention to just every moment of this Rules Committee hearing really speaks to the gravity of the moment.

And I will tell you that what you've heard largely are the same arguments you've heard in weeks from Democrats, that this was a shakedown of Ukraine's government, an effort for the President to get dirt on his political rivals.

From Republicans, you are hearing that the President did nothing wrong and that the Democrats have really led a sham process. But Jim McGovern, the Chairman of this committee, argue that this should be a moment that Republicans step back and reflect that even if they aren't going to be voting for impeachment, they should recognize that the President has done something wrong.

He said a lot of Democrats did that during the Clinton impeachment in 1998. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JIM MCGOVERN (D-MA): What shocks me quite frankly, about so many of my Republican friends is their inability to acknowledge that President Trump acted improperly.

I admired President Clinton when he was President of the United States and I still do today. But when this House impeached him, which I didn't agree with, I went to the House floor and I said I thought what President Clinton did was wrong because moments like this call for more than just reflective partisanship.

(END VIDEO CLIP) FOX: And of course, Brooke, we expect that this vote tomorrow is

going to come down largely on party lines. There may be a few Democratic defections.

We know that Representative Van Drew was expected to switch to the Republican Party is going to be voting no. We also expect that potentially Collin Peterson, a Democrat from Minnesota who voted against opening this inquiry would also vote no. Of course, he is not telling CNN specifically how he will vote tomorrow -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: All right, Lauren, thank you very much. Let's discuss what's to come in the next few hours, and of course, the big day tomorrow. Jennifer Rodgers is a CNN legal analyst and a former Federal prosecutor. John Avlon is a CNN Senior political analyst. Julie Hirschfeld Davis is a CNN political analyst and congressional editor for "The New York Times" and CNN presidential historian, Jeffrey Engel is the Founding Director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University.

And so welcome, welcome to everyone.

[14:05:00]

BALDWIN: And, Julie, I just want to start with you and some of what I was just chatting about with Lauren. You know, it's the big day before the big vote, walk us through what we've seen so far in the last couple hours with this Rules Committee and just how partisan things have been so far.

JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think the clips that you played really captured it. I mean, this is the rules that will set out the guidelines for this debate tomorrow. We will come to a vote in the morning and that will be seen as sort of a proxy vote on impeachment.

And by the same token, this debate today is something of a proxy debate on the Impeachment Articles where you're hearing both Democrats and Republicans kind of lay out their arguments.

What Representative Raskin said in the Rules Committee today is true that the facts here are not really in dispute. Everyone has seen the rough transcript of the phone call between President Trump and President Zelensky of Ukraine. He was clearly asking for investigations of his political rivals.

At the time, we now know the aid to Ukraine was held up and the only real question that Republicans have been raising today in the hearing is, you know whether there was a direct linkage why the President was doing what he was doing, but not that he was doing it.

And so it has been very striking that Republicans have been unwilling to say that, you know, maybe I didn't agree with what the President did, but this is not impeachable.

But I do think that we're going to continue to hear more and more of that, including in the debate tomorrow, where there's not really room for any criticism of President Trump, and what we're going to likely see is a very stark partisan divide, both in the debate and then in the final vote.

BALDWIN: Before we talk tomorrow because tomorrow obviously is historic, but in terms of today's hearing, John, what do you think of what we've seen so far?

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: This is -- the tone and the tenor is below the significance of the moment. This is a solemn and significant moment, but that has been a partisan food fight, and I don't mean partisan versus Republicans and Democrats, although it's that, too.

You've still got this sort of angry, irritated occasionally talking and shouting over each other insistence that facts exist or facts don't matter, and that's really troubling because we need to be able to reason together.

You know, Julie made the point you're not contesting the underlying facts, but the deflection and the trying to draw the attention elsewhere or saying that the facts don't exist that's sufficient.

The argument shouldn't be about; here are the facts, we can agree that they exist, we can disagree on whether it rises to the level of impeachment. We haven't been having that level of an adult conversation in that room.

BALDWIN: So it's interesting how you then delineate these two different sides, Jeffrey, to that point? You know, we've been hearing a lot of that, and I have a feeling once they finish with break, we'll be hearing a lot more and tomorrow, we'll be hearing a lot more.

But we still don't have specifics in terms of like the tick tock of tomorrow, you know, what, what are the details? Can you just tell us, what are the details that they will eventually be hammering out to just set the parameters for the impeachment vote tomorrow?

JEFFREY ENGEL, CNN HISTORIAN: Well, ultimately, they're going to be determining who gets to speak on either side and for how long? I mean, it seems it is a basically a foregone conclusion at this point that the President is of course going to be formally impeached by the House.

And then of course, the question turns up with what the Senate might choose to do. Now, so far we're hearing that the Senate is not going to, at least on the Republican side, is not going to be interested in having a particularly lengthy trial and/or hearing from any witnesses, according to Senator McConnell.

And that's actually the exact opposite of what happened in 1999, when the Senate, essentially seeing the divisiveness that had occurred with Clinton's impeachment, decided that they needed to essentially put on a unified front of a full and fair trial, basically, to help bring the country together, to help say that we have a legitimacy to this process. What we're seeing now, I think, is the fight continuing on from the

House into the Senate, which I think is only going to drive the great divisiveness and partisanship that we have in our country even further.

BALDWIN: Let me jump to that since you bring up the Senate side and witnesses. McConnell says that the Senate's role is just to hear the case, right, not to try, not to go on some fact finding mission and that if the Democratic Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer wanted to hear from witnesses, he should have pushed the House Democrats to go to court.

Not to mention, take a look at some numbers we have. New CNN polling shows Democratic support for impeach and removal is down double digits. Here are the numbers, you can see them for yourself.

So Jeffrey, just back to you, do you think the House Democrats -- and this is still sitting in the House realm right now -- do you think that the House Democrats missed an opportunity with their investigation?

ENGEL: You know, the question is, what were they trying to do? And I think if we just remember that each of these participants has a constitutional role, as well as a political one.

I mean, the founders, of course, did not actually develop a separation of powers. They separated - they developed a competition of powers that the House is supposed to jealously guard its powers, in this case, the power to decide whether or not as a democratically elected body, they feel that there is something that should be looked at and tried by the Senate.

And then the Senate, I think is supposed to essentially take the House's word for it, in the sense that if you believe, if the House of Representatives believes that there should be a trial, well, then we have a solemn obligation to actually have a trial and not predetermine the outcome.

[14:10:00]

ENGEL: You know, when Senator McConnell was talking about the thin case that the Democrats are making for the impeachment and therefore, no need for a real trial, he is not supposed to say that.

I mean, he may think it. He may have a vote already in his mind, but he is supposed to at least acknowledge and respect his colleagues across the Capitol and do essentially his constitutional role now that they've done theirs.

BALDWIN: What do you think, Jen?

JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I agree a hundred percent. I mean, he's not only prejudging this, he is telling everyone he is prejudging it.

I mean, he takes an oath as a senator to uphold the laws. He takes an oath as a juror to impartially consider the evidence here and he is doing nothing of the sort. And not only that, he is saying, I'm going to try to shut it down as much as I can, so that none of my other senator colleagues can do that either.

BALDWIN: Did you want to jump in, John?

AVLON: Impartial justice is the oath they're going to take, and they -- and he is the leader tone coming from the top is saying, they're going to disregard that oath and that's a real problem.

This is about -- this is about our democratic respect for law and order and you can't have people entrusted with those things say they're going to flop them for partisan purposes, and that's what's happening right now.

BALDWIN: Okay. Let me sneak a quick break in here, as we continue our discussion just talking about what will happen on the Senate trial. But of course, tomorrow is the huge day, the vote for impeachment for the President of the United States.

In a second, we will take you back to Capitol Hill in this debate over the rules for tomorrow's historic impeachment vote.

Plus, Rudy Giuliani is still on his -- shall we call it, not so secret mission now to dig up dirt on Ukraine and he says the President supports him.

Special Coverage here on CNN continues right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:16:18]

BALDWIN: Welcome back to the breaking news. This is the big day before the big day, of course. Live pictures as the House Rules Committee is in recess for the time being. But basically what we've seen so far in the last couple of hours is a lot of the arguments we've heard over the last couple of weeks quite partisan in nature.

But when they do resume, they will eventually set up the rules and the parameters, debate times et cetera for tomorrow's big impeachment vote.

And so let me pick up the conversation. John Avlon and Jen Rodgers, let me just pivot over to you because can we just -- there's so much that we can talk about, but let's just stop and pause and just appreciate how monumental tomorrow is that this will be the third President ever to be impeached and what do you expect, both of you, just from Congress tomorrow but also from the White House?

AVLON: I think the White House will be defined. Congress will be solemn, but partisan. There will be probably attempts to vent spleens, particularly on the Republican side, because the numbers aren't in their favor.

The thing to remember though, tomorrow, above all, is a day where politics is history in the present tense, only twice before, and while we've had three impeachments, or Impeachment Inquiries in the last 45 years, this is truly extraordinary.

And it does require us, as Barbara Jordan said during the Watergate hearings to be big, rather than small. Right now, you've got a lot of folks being small and loud.

RODGERS: Yes, I mean, I'll tell you what I don't expect which is what I'm used to in court, which is a solemn, controlled proceeding where the jurors don't know the facts in advance. They haven't prejudged anything. They don't know the participants and so they're able to decide based on the evidence. That's not what we're going to have here.

The evidence has been overwhelming and compelling that the President did something very, very wrong here. And yet, you still have Republicans denying that that's true. And so that's very, very different from what I'm used to in our criminal justice system.

BALDWIN: You know, also, Jeffrey, everyone has been watching on the House side, these moderate Democrats, where will they go, you know, on impeachment? And it turns out, they've really been falling in line with Speaker Pelosi and the party.

But when you look on the Senate side, you know, there are these moderate Republicans who are making Leader McConnell and the White House a little nervous. And my question to you is, might they break and vote with the Democrats on these trial related issues, including wanting witnesses to testify in person? What do you think?

ENGEL: You know, I wouldn't be surprised if they did, because each of them is facing, of course, a difficult political decision, and really worried about the ire of the voters on either side of the aisle.

And I think at the very least, if they fall back on the notion of voting for a fuller process, fall back on the notion of getting more evidence out of having the witnesses in, then they can then subsequently turn to their voters and say, well, at least I weighed all the evidence, at least, I decide based upon the full range of facts, not just based upon the partisan ideology.

And of course, I think it's important to remember that the number we need to remember in some ways is not 67. It's not the number that you need in order to vet --

BALDWIN: Fifty one instead, right?

ENGEL: Well, it's 51 in this case, but I was going to actually say, 33. As long as the President can maintain 33 votes, what that really means is that he cannot be removed from office, and therefore the senators who are on the wagon, on the saddle, who are trying to make their minds if you will, they have to decide whether or not they want to perhaps cast a few votes that they know are safe, because there's not going to be any change in the outcome, but it may change their own political fortunes.

AVLON: Right.

BALDWIN: Do you want to jump in?

AVLON: Well, it just reminds me one of the key jokes of our time, which Mike Murphy, a Republican consultant said a few weeks ago, if there was a secret ballot for impeachment among Republicans, you'd have at least 30 votes to impeach President Trump to which Jeff Flake, the former senator said no, that's absolutely wrong. You've got at least 35.

And I think that is the dynamic between public statements and private sentiment. But so far, folks have been really in lockstep with the President who is popular with the party, even if people privately feel that this is not behavior that you want to see with the President.

[14:20:10]

AVLON: And that's the key question, I think, for tomorrow and the next few days and weeks -- do you believe the President of the United States should get foreign powers to dig up dirt on political rivals? That's the question.

BALDWIN: Yes, bottom line. Full stop. We were talking before the break about going back to '99 and the Clinton impeachment and the not, you know, dragging in of witnesses. It was it was, you know, taped testimony.

And so I just -- we pulled up some tape. This is Mitch McConnell. This is back in 1999. Talking up the use of witnesses for Bill Clinton's impeachment trial. Roll it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): Every other impeachment has had witnesses. It's not unusual to have witnesses in a trial. The House managers have only asked for three witnesses. I think that's pretty modest.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So how can he make the case? Jeffrey Engel, how can he make the case now versus then on bringing witnesses in?

ENGEL: Well, how can he or how should he? I mean, this is the case that we know -- I don't think we should be surprised necessarily by a lack of consistency among our elected leaders.

And I think what's really critical here and what it's going to be perhaps more damaging to the institutions that we have going forward is that Senator McConnell is not actually doing the Senate's duty of essentially holding the executive to account.

You know, one of the things that's critical here is that these witnesses have been called for, and the Executive is saying, we're not going to give you these witnesses, and we're not going to give you documents, thereby denying the Senate the opportunity if it wanted to, to have a full and fair trial.

And that's something which I think I wish Senator McConnell would remember that the Constitution requires him to protect his institutional interests as much as his party interests, frankly, more than this party interest, but at least remember, he has an institutional interest in keeping the Senate a strong body to check a President in the future if need be.

BALDWIN: Not to mention, by the way, I know this is much different, Jen Rodgers from what you're used to. And this is, you know, if you end up having no witnesses, how do you have a trial?

RODGERS: Yes, good question. You have to have evidence, so it would be through documents.

BALDWIN: Through documents.

RODGERS: That would be the only way but, they're also withholding a lot of very important documents.

BALDWIN: Correct.

RODGERS: So, you know, you have evidence here. There's compelling evidence, actually. We did have a lot of testimony in the House. There are some documents that were turned over voluntarily by some of those witnesses and others.

So there is evidence here, it's just that there's a lot more evidence that we haven't seen that is critically central to what happened here and that's what's being blocked by McConnell.

Now, maybe the Senate will ultimately allow some of that with 51 votes, as we've been saying; but if not, it really does show that they are not trying to protect their own powers, their own co-equal status. And you know, it'll be a --

BALDWIN: Why are you looking at me? You're shaking your head.

AVLON: It's crazy because remember, Mitch McConnell famously described himself as an institutionalist.

BALDWIN: Yes.

AVLON: But he is not doing that. This is about moment for principle, not simply partisan politics, but that's the game we're seeing. And about the issue of witnesses which McConnell was very compelling about there and which by the way, Chuck Schumer was on the other side on, so sometimes where you stand is a matter of where you sit.

BALDWIN: Exactly.

AVLON: But there is a responsibility to be bigger and one of the weakness of the White House to the Republicans' point here is they're saying they're no direct witnesses, but they don't want to call the people with direct witnesses. In fact, they're actively blocking that that shows you the fundamental substance and the underlying issue. BALDWIN: You know, hard right turn, but I was at this event last

night honoring Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and she was -- she has this interview and she was interviewed by this woman over at the BBC and the presenter was trying to get her to make news on all things impeachment. Obviously, she's not -- she is very careful in how she responded.

But let me just read this quote from her, Justice Ginsburg was asked about this last night as far and as how you, Jeffrey, were talking about whether you know, the senator are fair jurors or to your point, it's really more of a court, right, as former Chief Justice Rehnquist had said.

And so she said last night, if a juror reveals a bias, they will be disqualified. And again, this is coming from a Supreme Court Justice here. Just a reminder, can you just close this out, Jeffrey, that this is -- this is not normal times?

ENGEL: No, this is not a normal court. In fact, I think one of the best things that we could do, frankly, is keep all the lawyers away from this court and remind themselves that all the rules that normally apply in a courtroom don't have to apply here, the Senate can do whatever it wants.

The Senate can rule however it wants on the rules, and also the Senate can overrule the presiding judge. In fact, in 1999, Senator Tom Harkin from Iowa made a real blustery point that they should stop referring to the senators as jurors, because a juror, he said was only there to decide right or wrong, and a juror was only allowed to use the evidence that they had presented in the trial.

[14:25:00]

ENGEL: He said no, that's not right. And Justice Rehnquist agreed with him and other senators agreed at the same time that what they were there to do what to do something bigger.

They were a court. They were there to decide what was best for the nation. Therefore, they could actually use whatever evidence they wanted. In a sense, there doesn't have to be any evidence presented for the senators on either side to recall different things that happened in the past with Donald Trump and bring it up in their determination over whether or not his staying or leaving office is actually in the best interest of the country.

By the same token, they can decide that he is guilty and also decide that he should stay in office. That's really the determination they need to make.

BALDWIN: Okay, let me thank all of you. Let's dip back into this House Rules Committee hearing that has just begun once again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Without objection.

REP. MARY GAY SCANLON (D-PA): Okay, thank you. I just wanted to clarify one thing. We had a line of questioning from Mr. Cole right before we broke and it had to do whether or not there been subpoenas issued for Ranking Member Nunes's phone records.

And, you know, there seemed to be some confusion from our two witnesses here. But I recalled the testimony that we had in Judiciary, which was that, in fact, no subpoenas had been issued for any member of Congress or for any journalist that the Intel committee has subpoenaed metadata, so just call records not actually phone taps of four people who'd been involved in this scheme to abuse the power of office and smear Ambassador Yovanovitch.

After each of those people had been subpoenaed individually, so that was Giuliani, Parnas and Fruman and Sondland. Two have been indicted for crimes now related to this investigation.

So once those phone records were brought in, patterns were noticed around particular events, and that was when Ranking Member Nunes's phone number was identified. It wasn't that his number was sought. He just happened to be in conversation with the co-conspirators there.

So if people are interested in that, in addition to the testimony we heard in Judiciary, that information can be found in the Intel report that was filed on Pages 45 through 47. And then at Footnote 76, which is on Page 155.

And I would just note, particularly there, it says the Committee did not subpoena the call detail records for any Member of Congress or staff. So, you know, to the extent that we were getting distracted by some notion that people were trying to improperly investigate Members of Congress, I think we should put that to bed and call it out for being a distraction and just not the truth. Mr. Raskin did that -- refresh your recollection on any of that?

RASKIN: Miss Scanlon, thank you very much for adding the details of my primary recollection of our conversation about that. It was precisely this, that the Intelligence Committee targeted no Member of Congress, it targeted, no journalist. It did not direct subpoenas against any of them.

And I believe that the names that came up, came up in the normal course of standard investigatory procedure. So there's nothing untoward there that I can see.

SCANLON: And also there was testimony from Mr. Nunes or not testimony, questioning of Ambassador Taylor by Mr. Nunes indicating that in fact, he had been phoning folks in the Ukraine. Right? So he had acknowledged that.

RASKIN: But he - Mr. Nunes?

SCANLON: Yes.

RASKIN: Yes. Yes. I believe that's in the transcript as well. I mean, he basically has said that he was conducting a kind of investigation of his own into what happened then.

SCANLON: Okay. Okay, hopefully that puts that to bed and I'd yield back to Mr. Hastings. REP. ALCEE HASTINGS (D-FL): Yes. I yield. I certainly yield.

COLLINS: Yes, I appreciate it. I appreciate the gentlelady bringing up it had nothing to do with the questions that was asked. And it doesn't put it to bed. I've always acknowledged that they were properly done subpoenas. I'm still in the institution, I believe the subpoena power of the Committee --

BALDWIN: All right, we're going to pull away from this for just a quick second. We've just gotten a huge piece of news that the White House, that the President has just sent a letter to the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Let's go straight to our White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins who has the details. And Kaitlan, what is the President saying?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, this is a really lengthy six-page scathing letter from the President addressed to the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, essentially denouncing these Articles of Impeachment against him.

It sounds like it is written verbatim by the President himself in his words, where he says he is writing to express his strongest and most powerful protest against these Articles of Impeachment.

He says, quote, "You have cheapened the importance of the very ugly word impeachment," and then he later goes on to say that she is violating her oath of office. He calls this an invalid impeachment and says that she dares to invoke the Founding Fathers in pursuit of this.

[14:30:10]